The anonymous Five hundred mistakes corrected (1856) is one of the very earliest American English usage guides. In its approach, contents and use of proscriptive metalanguage it fits into the tradition of usage guide writing, which had started in England nearly a century before and which continues, with ever increasing numbers of publications, down to the present day. But whereas in England the earliest usage guides served an important function to people who became socially mobile after the onset of the Industrial Revolution, in America the rise and popularity of the genre is closely linked to increasing numbers of immigrants from Europe around the middle of the nineteenth century.